When I went to the RubyKid Cupcake and Stout Tasting at the Stag's Head, climbing down into a dark, overcrowded, overheated room with rustic wood unfinished boards as paneling, hanging statuary stag heads, and television and recorded music making a mish-mash of voices, I was curious about how it was possible for stout and cupcakes to go together. My father had been a beer-drinker when I was growing up. When he was drinking beer, he always swore off offers of the sweet desserts and snacks my siblings and I found so tasty. Of course, stout is quite different from the lager he favored, and chocolate and oatmeal and the like have been described as flavor nuances and suggested as food pairings for stout. It was thus appropriate that the mini cupcakes offered for free were chocolate at the base (with perhaps a faint admixture of stout itself in the crumb).
Half of them had salted caramel frosting and a pretzel on top, while the other half had buttercream frosting flavored with Bailey's Irish cream and adorned with coarse brown sugar on top. And what of the stout? Several varieties were listed; a server gave me a flyer detailing the name, properties, and purported flavor notes of each. I tried the Oskar Blues Death by Coconut stout first because it was the only one being given out from a pitcher by another server. It was surprisingly coconutty. The flyer said that it was a "limited release specialty" that "comes around once a year". The other varieties on tap had to be waited for and requested at the bar. I tried three of them, in shotglass-size servings:
Westbrook Mexican cake: From the name, I expected this to be something that could potentially go well with cupcakes, but the primary taste sensation was fiery: it must have been the "fresh habanero peppers" the flyer said it contained. Glad I was not compelled to order a full sized glass of it just to find out what it tasted like. My next taste sample was the Evil Twin Imperial Doughnut Break stout: perhaps I should have had something to clear my palate, but I just wasn't tasting the doughnuts. Finally, I asked for the Evil Twin Bozo. To my surprise, it was genuinely sweet and mild, yet flavorful. To my mind, it would not only go with a dessert, it could be a dessert. The flyer hints at flavor complexity and exotic ingredients, "with hints of: molasses, lactose, chocolate, almond, hazelnut, vanilla bean, cinnamon, oak spiral, chili, marshmallow, muscovado sugar, chestnut and coffee." I must return someday to the Stag's Head. It is the better sort of bar that offers burgers, fries, and cooked bar snacks as well as drinks and craft beers. The Cornerstone Pub, a similar establishment with a similarly dark wood bar and tables, but a somewhat different menu, is connected internally, making it possible to go from one to the other without having stepped outside.